Scientists have engineered a way to see an impossible new color
In short: Human vision is limited by three types of cone cells in our retinas, creating a specific palette of millions of colors. But researchers have found a way to bypass these biological constraints using precise lasers to stimulate our eyes in ways that nature never intended.
For millennia, humanity relied on natural pigments and dyes for color. It wasn't until the last 300 years that chemical synthesis revolutionized our visual world, expanding the variety of colors available to us. However, even with these advancements, we remain bound by the biological hardware of our eyes. The average human eye can perceive approximately 10 million variations in color, ranging from pure gray to laser green.
Our vision is governed by three types of photoreceptors: L cones (long wavelengths/red), M cones (medium wavelengths/green), and S cones (short wavelengths/blue). In the natural world, these cells always overlap; any light that activates an M cone will also trigger either an S or an L cone. This means there is no light in nature that can activate only the M cone cells. To overcome this, Ren Ng and his team at the University of California, Berkeley, developed a technique called Oz.
By using a precise laser setup to target specific cone cells, researchers were able to stimulate an array of receptors in a non-natural manner. This allowed five participants to see an impossibly saturated bluish-green that exists outside the standard range of human color vision. While some describe this new sensation as "olo," or the "greenest green," it is a color that can never be captured by a camera, as it relies entirely on unique neurological stimulation.
This breakthrough was made possible by technology from Austin Roorda's lab, which can map individual cone cells and target them with light. While this technology is primarily used to study eye diseases and the mechanics of vision, Ng’s experiment demonstrates how we might eventually expand the boundaries of human perception beyond our evolutionary limits.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: 3 Brand New Colors That Scientists Discovered
- Also: Only Five People Have Seen This New Impossible Color
- Also: What Would It Mean to See a New Color?
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